


A Somaal Universe

by antistar_e (kaikamahine)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Babies, Background Steven/Connie, F/F, Reconciliation, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9241109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine/pseuds/antistar_e
Summary: Connie flips over the next card. "'Most likely to -'" She reads out loud, and then dissolves into laughter and has to start over, propping the card up on her bump. "'Most likely to freak out when you go into labor and break the speed limit getting to the hospital?'""Pearl," Amethyst and Jasper say in unison."Definitely Pearl," Garnet agrees."Oh, yeah," says Peridot."Sorry," Lapis adds, as Steven covers his mouth, giggling, "but it's true."Pearl looks around at all their faces, outraged. "I wouldnever,"she says, but with an edge of doubt.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For [Jaspis Week,](http://jaspisweek.tumblr.com/) **Day 2: Gemling/Family.** I originally was going to skip this day in order to work on another, but then got the idea of Lapis holding Steven and Connie's baby stuck in my head and it wouldn't let me go.
> 
> So I apologize, this was written in a little under 48 hours and hasn't really been proofread!
> 
> Canon compliant up to Gem Harvest, which I haven't seen yet.

*

 

"I don't understand why we can't just install a warp pad in the Capitol building," says Pearl, pulling the strap of her seat belt taut so she can lean over the dashboard, trying to see around the bulk of the eighteen-wheeler crawling along in front of them. "It would be so much less hassle than _driving._ But no, I was told it was - " she gives up and makes the most disgusted set of air quotes Anita has ever seen, "- _'inappropriate.'"_

Squeezed up against the passenger-side door with her overnight bag sitting on her sweating feet, Anita Zalasar-Maheswaran starts to nod and then switches to shaking her head and then, uncertainly, nods again.

 _I have no idea what she's talking about,_ she thinks.

Jasper eases off the gas to let them inch forward and says, "You didn't have one already? I'm surprised."

"Oh, we did," says Pearl. "When they built the first one."

If someone assembled toothpicks into the shape of a person, that would be Pearl - everything about her is long, sharp, and pointy, her manner of speaking especially. She's got great skin, too, Anita notices, watching Pearl gesture expansively. It's so clear it's almost iridescent.

Lapis tries to avoid an elbow. "Wait, you did?"

"Yes. We thought it would come in handy, but then they moved the capital to a _swamp_ and we thought they couldn't _possibly_ be serious, so we never bothered moving it. And after three hundred years passed, it was too late anyway. Security is far too tight now."

Jasper looks interested now. "Is that warp pad still there?"

"Yes, in Empire City, only now the only thing of interest it connects to is a very nice wine cellar. I've never touched the stuff," she shudders delicately, "but Amethyst used to sneak a bottle every now and then to leave in Greg's storage unit for him to find and think he had all along. Then he could sell them off - her way of saying thank you, I suppose. I'm just surprised she didn't eat them. She eats everything else with cork in it."

"He never caught on?"

"Have you _seen_ Greg's storage unit?"

Jasper props her elbow against the driver's side window and shrugs, like, _good point._

"I haven't," Lapis interjects, looking between them. "What's it like?"

"You've seen it," Jasper tells her. "It's where they kept me after unbubbling me, but before Steven found the right combination of things for a cure. It was empty by then, though."

"The doghouse, remember the doghouse?" Pearl adds in a helpful aside, but her focus is on the bumper-to-bumper traffic - and on the dashboard clock.

She's been glancing at it so often that Anita, by extension, is also keenly aware of every minute that's ticked by since the grey pickup truck with "FORESTRY SERVICES ONLY" boldly printed on the side pulled up to the curb outside her dorm. What's normally just a two-hour drive into DC looks like it's going to take … longer, and she's already getting familiar with the bumps and dents in the lift-gate of the semi ahead of them. If she were with her family, they'd already be dialing the "HOW'S MY DRIVING" number to make up some gushing story, just for fun.

She shifts, adjusting her grip on the handles of her bag and trying to think small thoughts. It's a little cramped in here, with four women.

Pearl bursts. 

"Oh, come _on!"_ she yells at the ribbon of brake-lights stretching all the way onward, around the bend and out of sight. "If we had a warp pad in the Capitol, we could be with Steven and Connie by now, and not stuck here - _useless!"_

"What do you think's going to happen?" Lapis asks, simultaneous with Anita's confused, "Why the Capitol? Connie doesn't work there."

"Anything could happen!" Pearl wails. "Humans are _so_ biologically frail. It's a wonder they've made is this far! I don't trust your doctors with our girl, we _need_ to be there. _NOW._ And she will," she adds, leaning across Lapis to speak to Anita, with complete confidence. "You'll have her face on your circular currency before the end of the century, mark my words."

Anita doesn't know how Connie's going to go from the self-defense dojo where she's working now to Capitol Hill, but she nods anyway, to be polite.

Then, "Ma'am," she says, firm. "My mother's worked at that hospital all my life. And Aunt Maheswaran's a doctor, too. She's in no better hands."

"Humans give birth all the time, Pearl," Jasper adds, in a very even tone. "Not every situation is Rose Quartz. Do you want to know - "

" _Oh!"_ Pearl cuts her off, slapping her arm - traffic's pulling forward.

It turns immediately into a bellow of outrage as a yellow sedan with Pennsylvania plates comes speeding up the shoulder and cuts into the gap between their truck and the semi.

" _That's not even a lane!"_ she shrieks. "My baby is having a _baby_ and we are in a _hurry,_ do you - _don't give me that look, mister!"_

Behind her back, Lapis and Jasper exchange a glance, fighting smiles.

Honestly, Anita was going to take the bus, but her cousin Connie text-bombed her that morning. _They're inducing labor early! Mom and Dad are coming in in the afternoon, but I know you're in school and you shouldn't have to pay for the fare. You're doing ME a favor, remember? I'm ruthlessly sacrificing you on the altar of the family debate on whether I'm having children too young and ruining all my chances at a successful career or whether I'm having children too old and ruining all my chances at successful motherhood. If you're around, they'll start on you instead. Sorry! The very least I can do is send Steven's family to pick you up. They're great people._

Which is how Anita wound up in the cab of a Forestry Services pickup with three of the most alarming women she's ever met.

She rallies. Connie knows what she's talking about, right? She picked this family and married into it.

 _Technically_ that makes them Anita's family too.

Great people. Okay.

She turns to Lapis, whose bare shoulder has been propped against her for most of the trip.

She opens her mouth, and "so what do you do?" flies right out of it.

There's a pause, and Anita _cringes,_ acutely embarrassed to be in the same car with herself. She _knows_ there are better - more sensitive, oh my god! Who raised you! - conversational openers than that.

Lapis blinks at her.

"In general?" she asks, in a tone that makes Anita feel about two inches tall.

"Yeah, if you'd like," she mumbles.

"I look at things," Lapis says, and, "with these eyeballs," like clarification is needed.

"Oh," says Anita, and, "that's good," which it becomes obvious she isn't going to add anything else. "We need people to look at things. Some things are probably really great to look at!"

Lapis lights up and says, "yes, that's it exactly!"

They nod at each other, meaningfully. Anita isn't one-hundred percent sure what she's agreeing to, but.

"Oh," says Pearl, distracted from her fuming. She turns to Jasper. "Peridot showed us some of your pictures - that's a very nice cabin, but why did you build it?"

Jasper lifts her huge shoulders and drops them, heavy as an anvil.

She's as squarish as Pearl is pointy - her face is broad and flat, her hands are broad and flat, like someone had run her into a brick wall a few too many times and then left her there. She's also too large for the driver's seat; her knees bash the underside of the steering column every time she switches pedals. Anita hasn't seen her standing, but whoever looked at her and said, _that's a wild mountain woman, let's hire her,_ probably wasn't far off.

"The _humans,"_ she says with exasperation. "They're fine with me having the truck and letting me walk all over the mountains, but when they saw I was living in the cave with the warp pad, they got _weird_ and said I had to have shelter."

"So you're really a ranger?" Anita asks with interest.

Jasper drags at the front of her heavy coat, showing Anita some kind of badge.

"Forest protection!" she says, with no small amount of pride. "You need special training to be a Catskill Forest Ranger, which I was not forged with - so the title goes to the humans with the specialized advantage."

"She means education," Pearl says.

"Yes. That. I'm just me," she says, and Anita gets the feeling she's someone whose level-headed approach to things is very hard won, and diligently worked on. "I make observations on the food web - their interactions and stuff - and write it down for the people interested in how protected the protected wilderness is."

"You can spend days tracking some of the really big predators," Lapis adds. "The ones that make everything else run."

"Oh," says Anita.

She's been camping once in her entire life, and has no desire to repeat the experience. She can't even remember the last time she let a bug crawl on her voluntarily.

"Doesn't that get lonely?" she asks. "Or cold?"

"It's not always fun," Jasper allows, easing back up onto the semi's bumper as the Pennsylvania plate cuts into the left lane and disappears. "But where I'm from, we don't have animals. There's no organic life at all. So all this is new to me."

"Us," Lapis corrects. "There's _so much_ to see. I like it."

And since Anita's turned in that direction, she sees the sudden grin Jasper flashes out at the crawling traffic, badly startling the kid in the backseat of the car next to them - it's a very toothy grin.

Then Lapis says, wonderingly, "Did you know that a single colony of beetles can strip a deer carcass in less than four hours?"

"Ew," says Pearl.

"It's _amazing."_

Anita gestures between Jasper and Lapis. "Do you two live together, then?"

"No," Lapis answers, suddenly flat. "She doesn't have Wifi."

 _BANG!_ go both of Jasper's knees against the steering column. Anita gets the sense there's a minor combustion happening in the driver's seat, and grabs onto the door handle to brace herself. She's honestly never seen a woman's hair stand on end like that before.

"Is _that_ what's been bothering you?!" Jasper explodes. "I thought it was the cabin! I thought it was me! I thought it was _everything I am!"_

Lapis makes a rude noise.

"Jasper …" Pearl says weakly, her hands over her ears.

Jasper immediately drops a few decibels. 

"Indoor voice," she acknowledges. "Right. _Fine,_ Lapis, I'll get Wifi! I can do that!" A pause. "What's Wifi and how do I get it?"

Pearl and Anita both draw breath in preparation to speak, but a solid _thunk!_ from the truck bed interrupts them. A low, aggressive hiss like a deflating tire follows it, and Anita sees motion in the corner of her eye.

"Something's _back there!"_ she yelps, horrified.

"You woke her up!" Pearl complains to Jasper.

"Sorry!" Jasper yells back, not sounding very sorry about it. "Lapis, can you check on Emerald? What's she doing?"

Anita flattens herself up against the door so that Lapis can twist around in their shared lap belt, pressing her hands against the partition and peering through it into the truck bed. All Anita can see from this angle is blue plastic and two propane tanks, the kind she has a vague idea are probably used for portable heaters. She hadn't _thought_ they were transporting a body, but now she isn't sure.

"You still call her that?" Pearl says, nose scrunched up disapprovingly.

"It's what she is," Jasper responds, and then visibly checks herself. "Er - she hasn't expressed a wish to be called something different, so until she does …"

"Hey," Lapis jumps in. "You had something wrapped in tarp back there, didn't you?"

"Yeah, for the trail markers - "

"Well, you don't anymore. She's drooled on it and now it's pretty much burnt up."

"You've _got_ to be kidding me."

"What's back there?" Anita asks, now very alarmed.

"More of Steven's family," Jasper says shortly, and narrowly misses clouting Pearl on the head as she balls up a fist and starts pounding it on the partition. "Don't you _dare_ eat through my truck bed, you quartz monstrosity! (Don't look at me like that, Pearl, I can call her that - I'm a quartz, too.) We're going to meet a baby today and _you_ need to be on your best behavior! _No. Spitting."_

The hissing grows louder, and then abates entirely.

 _I'm going to die,_ Anita thinks, with the same kind of resignation she feels when approaching exams. Like, it's unfortunate and she has no strong desire to die, but she acknowledges it's probably unavoidable at this point.

They inch along for another ten minutes, with Jasper periodically checking the rearview mirror with deep suspicion.

Pearl drums her fingers on her knees impatiently. 

"I know traffic in big cities is often terrible," she says, as they pass the Pennsylvania plate again and try not to feel smug - that's what you get for being an asshole, dude. "But isn't this worse than normal?"

"Ma'am," Anita interjects. "Annapolis's graduation is today."

" _Ugh,"_ says Pearl, with feeling. She turns to Jasper. "Can't you do something?"

Dryly, Jasper responds, "Like what?"

"Well, you're - " she gestures. " _Scary!_ Can't you revert back to your corrupted form and frighten everybody off the road or something? _Please?_ Just for a little bit, you don't need to go overboard … " She trails off hopefully, and then reads the answer in Jasper's face. "Oh, fine. It was just a suggestion."

"I swore to Steven that I would never harm, maim, or cause undue alarm to any human while on this planet," Jasper tells her, adamant. "You should remember that, you were there."

"I was?" Pearl blinks in confusion, and even Lapis looks up, like this is news to her. Pearl puzzles over it for a moment, and then her eyebrows spring apart. "Wait, are you talking about - Jasper, Steven was _kidding._ You made Petey cry, he was just trying to get you to behave so that Beach City wouldn't run you out when we'd only just started working on you! He wasn't _actually_ extracting a gem-sworn oath from you!"

But Jasper says, in a near-growl that suddenly makes her _very_ scary indeed, "What good am _I_ if my promises are only for convenience?"

"Well," Pearl tries. "That's very noble, but - "

"Leave her alone, Pearl."

Pearl blinks, and looks at Lapis, who looks back - and Anita can't see her expression from this angle, but whatever's on her face makes Pearl quail instantly.

"You're right," she says briskly. "it would be an inappropriate use of our power."

She's not looking, but Anita is, and so she sees something pass between Jasper and Lapis that makes her blink, and then she ducks her head, feeling warm and a little silly, too, like seeing old people hold hands in the grocery store or a kiss stolen in front of her at the bus terminal - something that so wholly, so completely is _not_ for her, but something that makes her want to keep it anyway, stick it in a jar and cut out holes for air so she can watch it glow.

"Besides, I can only transform when the stars are in the right position," Jasper says with perfect seriousness.

\- and Anita's back to feeling off-kilter, thrown smack into somebody else's family drama.

 _Yours, too,_ she reminds herself. 

They're connected now, her and these women, by the thread of that life currently being born in the maternity ward of the same hospital where Anita had all of her childhood immunizations and free STD screenings.

"Steven did a good job, but I'm not Amethyst. I need to have Homeworld in a particular spot, relative to Earth, in order to get the right amount of energy in my gem to grow fangs."

"What about - " Pearl jerks her thumb towards the truck bed.

"Same deal," Lapis pipes up. "Only reversed. She was corrupted for so much longer, and now she can only change back for small increments of time. We're hoping this will be one of them."

"That makes sense," Pearl allows.

 _No it doesn't!_ Anita wants to yell. _Connie, what did you get me into!_

The whine of the semi's air brakes releasing alerts them that they're accelerating again, so Jasper's foot comes off the brake - except then it doesn't come back down again.

All four heads come up at once.

The gridlock's breaking apart.

Pearl jams her foot flat against the mat like she's imagining it's the accelerator.

"Go, _go, go!"_ she choruses to Jasper, voice rising. "Nothing's going to keep us from seeing Steven and Connie and their baby, least of all bad traffic! _Punch it!"_

Jasper squints her eyes up. "Will any human be harmed, maimed, or caused undue alarm if I punch it?" she asks judiciously.

Pearl makes a strangled, inarticulate sound.

"You're not supposed to say that!" she yells. "Are _you a quartz or aren't you?"_

"We have to drop Anita off at her parents' house, too, remember?" Lapis says, settling back against the bench and crossing her legs at the ankle, looking like she's enjoying herself. They're up to freeway speed now, and the truck's engine roars with exertion.

"We do?"

"Connie and Steven are staying with us for a couple days after mom and baby are discharged," Anita reminds her. "We didn't want everyone descending on her in her hospital room at once."

And now that she's met Steven's family (and this is just _some_ of them!) she's suddenly starting to understand that logic.

"But!" she adds hastily, in case that sounded rude. "I appreciate you giving me a ride."

 

*

 

The sun's disappeared behind the hospital, leaving no indication to its progress beyond the streaks of cotton-soft greys, pinks, and oranges staining the sky in its wake, before Emerald finally says, "Okay, I think - I think I'm ready."

Jasper stretches a boot out and kicks down the pickup's tailgate. With a grunt, she hops to the pavement, turning to give her a hand.

"Sorry for m-m-making you wait," Emerald stammers, getting her hands and knees under her in the correct order and wobbling as she tries to stand. The visitor's lot is full of cars but devoid of people, so there's nobody around to see her use two sets of arms to lever herself to the ground.

"Don't worry about it," says Jasper, low enough that her voice scrapes like a rocky riverbed on its way out. She clears her throat. "They should have some time to themselves, anyway - the gems they love most, before we - "

"You stop that," Lapis snaps, hopping out of the truck, shaking her skirt out. "Just because we came _last_ doesn't mean we mean _less."_

And she could mean last to the hospital room, but she could also mean last to the family. Either way, she _means_ it, and she sees that belief sink into Jasper. Her shoulders relax a fraction.

It's the most hard-won of her hard-won lessons, and it makes Emerald smile at her. She reaches out to fix an errant loop of Lapis's hair, quick fingers tucking it back behind her ear. Like every Emerald Lapis ever met, she's optimally designed for the cockpit of Homeworld warships - all long parts, arms and legs and face, with keen eyes and the distinctive white cloud of quartz hair. When she turns her smile towards the hospital entrance, Lapis catches a glimpse of the dark green gem set behind her teeth. 

The maternity ward's nearly quiet by the time they make it up there, half-carrying Emerald between them.

Well, okay, Jasper's doing most of the carrying, but Lapis is holding two of her four hands, giving them a squeeze every time she falters and loses control of her shape - and that's just as important, surely.

"Sorry," Emerald keeps saying. "I'm used to having a hundred more legs than this."

"It's all right," Lapis keeps saying back.

But Emerald balks as they come up on the occupied help desk, trying to bury her face in Jasper's shoulder. Her teeth chatter in a clear nervous tic. "No, no, no," comes out. "I can't."

Lapis has seen enough shows to know how this part works.

She takes a deep breath, steadying herself to Interact With Humans, but before she can say anything, the nurse on duty looks up. Her eyes rake them head to toe - she's got tiny alien spaceships on her scrubs, Lapis notices, and resolves to point that out to Peridot the second she sees her - and without needing to ask, she points.

"Room 331," she says.

"Thank you," Lapis and Jasper say in unison, while Emerald warbles something that might be words.

Room 331 has cheerful duckling trim along the baseboard, and as soon as they round the corner past the bathroom, the first person Lapis's eyes find is Peridot, precariously balanced on a chair with her tablet lofted high above her head, taking pictures. She glances over and spots Lapis - her whole face lights up in return.

Then there's Steven, and Garnet, and Connie on the bed with Pearl stretched out on her stomach next to her. The both of them carefully watch Amethyst, who has a bundle of canary-yellow fabric and small brown face nestled in her arms. Pearl hovers so close she's in danger of bumping them with her nose.

 _Baby,_ Lapis thinks. _That's a baby._

A human, newly forged.

" - with her head - " Connie's saying, demonstrating.

" - honestly, Amethyst - " and that's Pearl, but she's too dazzled to put any real heat behind it.

"She's such a _small bean!"_ Amethyst squeals, delighted. " _Look_ at her!"

"Make her do something!" Peridot suggests, ready with the tablet.

Pearl protests, "she's too new for that!", except the baby proves her wrong by immediately passing gas.

Amethyst and Peridot holler in unison, thrilled.

Garnet glances up, sees them hovering uncertainly, and touches Steven's shoulder.

He follows the direction of her gaze, and catapults to his feet.

" _Centi!"_ he yells joyfully, and swoops down on Emerald. Jasper and Lapis let go and step back prudently so he can engulf her in a hug, lifting her off her feet. It's no small matter anymore, not since Steven grew into his full quartz size, and Emerald's from that stunted wartime generation - she suddenly seems very small in comparison (and Lapis can sympathize; spending all her time with Jasper has made her forget she isn't _actually_ a short person,) holding all four arms out for balance as Steven spins her around.

"I didn't know you were coming!" he sets her down, holding her out at arm's length. "Wow, you look great!"

"I know," Emerald croaks back at him with a sharp green grin, like it hadn't taken her an hour ("weren't you three right behind me?" Pearl's saying blankly, blinking at them from the bed,) to stabilize her shape to her satisfaction. 

He laughs, and says, "Connie, you remember Centipeedle?"

"Nice to see you again, ma'am," Connie nods to her, and then to Jasper and Lapis, too. "Ma'am. Ma'am. Thank you all very much for coming, I know you've all got very important work - "

"Nothing is more important than this," Garnet says.

Connie's eyes crinkle in the corners. "That's very kind of you to say," she says. "Steven and I are very glad to have you here."

"Would you like to meet her?" Steven asks them, and doesn't wait for an answer, grabbing Emerald's hand and towing her over to the bed. Lapis follows, and after a moment's hesitation, Jasper comes, too, ducking under the light fixture.

Reluctantly, Amethyst gives up her armful of fluffy blanket, and Steven turns around.

"Centi, Lapis, Jasper," he says. "Meet Somaal."

Lapis reaches up - but doesn't have to, because Steven's already crouching so she can see, letting them crowd in close.

It turns out that in real life, human babies look exactly like they do on television, which is to say they look like humans do, except smaller and less formed, like when you pause your show and you can see the places the animators rushed things - her hands and feet disproportionate compared to her head, everything lumpy and not very well defined. But Lapis can see the places where Steven and Connie fused: the places where it's important to get it right every time. She smiles.

"Will she grow up to look like Stevonnie?" Jasper asks, clearly thinking along the same lines.

"That's a good question," says Connie, simultaneous with Steven's gasp of, "Oh, I _hope_ so!" and Garnet's, "It's a possibility."

" _Ugh,"_ bursts out of Amethyst impatiently. "Give her back already, I want to munch on her feet! Not literally," she adds for Connie's benefit.

"I wasn't worried," Connie assures her, while looking a little worried.

Steven moves to stand, except Lapis's hand snatches his wrist of its own accord, and she leans in, touching Somaal's face - her cheek, her squashed nose, her tiny mouth, which smacks around her fingertip reflexively. She's very warm.

"She's all right, Lapis," Steven tells her gently.

"Okay," says Lapis, and lets go.

"Awww, _man,_ I can't wait!" Amethyst pumps her fist. "We're going to do so much _stuff!_ I'm going to turn into all her favorite animals so she can scare the other kids, Pearl's going to teach her dumb important stuff - "

Peridot makes a sudden trod-on noise.

"I don't have any music ready!" she says in horror, and looks beseechingly at Connie. "I've got to teach her! What kind of music does she like?"

"She's too new for that - " Pearl tries.

"My mother said whale song and other subaquatic sounds are very good for newborns," Connie says, and her eyebrows lift when Lapis and Jasper both visibly perk up.

"We've got that!" Lapis promises Peridot, feeling Jasper nod at her back. "A lot of animal noises, including whale song."

"Nerds," Peridot replies, pleased.

Emerald glances between them, curious. "She's not f-f-forged already knowing these things?" she rasps.

Everyone shakes their heads.

"Humans have got to learn as we go along," Steven tells her.

"Oh, and they grow up so fast!" Pearl exclaims. "It's like you turn your back on them and they're already walking!"

There's a pause, in which seven gems stare very intently at Somaal while trying not to look like that's what they're doing, in case they blink and suddenly she's already toddling. Connie and Steven look at each other, amused, and then Connie breaks the moment by yawning.

"Gems, Connie's had a long day and she'll have an even longer one tomorrow," Garnet points out.

"Err, perhaps we should - " Lapis starts.

"When are they going to let you out of here?" Peridot asks, and Lapis tenses, mouth snapping shut and her peripheral vision turning to static.

Are they - are they _holding_ Connie and her baby against her will? Is she - 

"I'm staying overnight," Connie answers, and slowly, Lapis's hackles come down. "There were some complications - nothing serious!" she adds quickly, upon finding herself crosshaired by several intense, protective stares. "And it's my first baby, so we want to be safe. They're going to discharge me tomorrow if Somaal and I check out, and then we're meeting my side of the family at my aunt's house."

She looks at Steven, and they both stick their tongues out; it's a surprisingly childlike gesture, and it strikes Lapis somewhere very tender inside her heart, because it's been a long time since she's seen it. When did she last visit?

"You don't like your family?" Jasper asks.

"Oh, no," Connie says. "They're wonderful, ma'am, but they'll have Somaal's life planned out through age forty-five before we've even been there forty-five minutes. They mean well, I guess," and her shoulders don't even begin to sag before Steven's there, wrapping his arm around them, Somaal nestled firmly in the crook of his other elbow. She hasn't opened her eyes through all of this, like even as new as she is, she trusts they mean no harm.

"Tell Anita to break the blue vase," Garnet tells Connie, enigmatically.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Knock, knock," comes from somewhere behind Jasper's bulk.

There comes a confusing moment when everybody tries to juggle, squeezing up against each other so that the nurse can wheel her portable check-up station in. She taps her laptop awake and glances around at all of them - Lapis can see her carefully not blink at Jasper's height or Peridot's strangely-shaped head or Emerald's four arms or anybody's gem.

"Goodness," she remarks. "You've got quite the crowd here, mom."

"Thanks, Jasmyn," Connie says.

Lapis frantically gestures at Peridot behind the nurse's back, pointing at the alien spaceship scrubs, and Peridot dances on her tiptoes, mouthing back, _I know!_

"Oh, boy, you haven't met my moms yet! Here," Steven tries to pass Somaal to Amethyst, but the nurse deftly intercepts and gets down to the business of unwrapping her. The rest of Somaal is as reddish-brown as her face, and her feet and hands kick out in protest at the chill air.

Steven introduces Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst in turn, then hesitates when he gets to Peridot - it's a bare hiccup in his stride, but Peridot zeroes in on it instantly.

"Of _course_ I'm your mom!" she snaps. "I practically raised you!"

Pearl and Amethyst lift their heads and glare, which does nothing but make Peridot put her hands on her hips and set her jaw defiantly.

It isn't until Garnet looks at her and slowly raises an eyebrow that she relents.

"You guys helped. I _guess."_

"Thanks, Peridot," Steven tells her warmly. "- and that's Lapis Lazuli, Jasper, and Centipeedle."

"Goodness. I bet you didn't even need to try out for the football team in school," the nurse answers. "You have your own team! Who gave you away at your wedding?"

"They all did," Steven says. "But they had to fuse into one colossal Mega-Mom to do it!"

"Well, _duh!_ None of the fusions wanted to miss it," Amethyst agrees, and then her eyes go very, very round. "Dude! The fusions! They're going to want to meet your munchkin too!"

"Not here!" Pearl yelps, and everybody starts laughing, just like that. It's a huge sound that fills the room, and spills over.

Like happiness does, Lapis thinks - you think you can't have enough and then it's everywhere, over everything, every place you turn, and you don't know what to do with it or even that you had that much space for it in you.

Somaal startles, her eyes popping open, and she immediately begins to wail.

"Oh, dear," says Jasmyn the nurse, but she's smiling.

 

*

 

Amethyst props her elbows on the bedside railing, watching Somaal settle against Connie's chest. Connie looks up - at her husband, at Garnet, at Amethyst and Pearl and Peridot, at Lapis and Jasper and Emerald, and her face goes soft.

Reaching out, Amethyst bops Somaal on her tiny button nose.

"Welcome to your family, little gemdrop," she says softly.

 

*

 

" - and I used public transportation," Peridot's saying. "It was disappointing, and nowhere near as exciting as television makes it look."

"I told you, dude," Amethyst tells her, unsympathetic.

They gathered in the waiting area after Garnet politely but firmly evicted them so that Connie could sleep. It still took another five minutes to get everyone out, because they all wanted to bestow Somaal with one last kiss. Lapis leans against the counter, where there's a water cooler, a fruit basket, and a beleaguered-looking Keurig.

"Are we - are we all staying at Peridot's apartment tonight, then?" Pearl asks. "It's the closest place I can think of."

Peridot's face flashes with the expression universal to everyone who suddenly needs to wonder if they've left their underwear lying out somewhere conspicuous.

"My dad and I have a room at the Best Western across the street," Steven offers. "If you'd rather."

"Oh, yeah, that works."

"Yes, definitely."

"Phew," Peridot adds.

A shadow falls across her, and Lapis looks up.

"Lapis," Garnet says.

A quick look around confirms that the others have now drifted out of earshot - towards the elevator, towards the stairs, indicating their readiness to leave without really committing to it, and now Lapis is more or less alone with Garnet.

"Hi," she says, and it doesn't sound encouraging even to her own ears, but Garnet smiles anyway, like maybe she - 

Oh.

Lapis straightens up, arms dropping to her sides. "You knew about this. About her."

"She became more and more likely, yes, but no life is ever a certainty," Garnet tells her. "She had to be Steven and Connie's decision alone."

"Will she be …" Lapis starts, and then doesn't know how to finish.

 _Happy_ seems too simple, because of course she'll be happy, but she'll be sad, too, and angry, and helpless, and none of those things will be any less legitimate than the other. _Will she be good_ is too vague, and Lapis doesn't know how that's something you can even judge.

Garnet says, "I see her becoming a hundred thousand things - she is too full of potential for this one eye to see," she touches her forehead, above her visor, and smiles. 

It takes another moment, and then Lapis smiles back with a sudden flash of understanding.

"Her purpose is hers to make?"

"Yes," Garnet agrees, with a note in her voice just like joy. 

(Isn't this what Rose Quartz asked the Crystal Gems to do - to protect humans and the endless things they could be?)

And then Garnet says, "Are you and Jasper okay?" and Lapis's good feeling evaporates. She puts her shoulders up, flattening her back against the edge of the counter.

Garnet watches her guard go up, brick-by-brick.

Her expression is unreadable until she speaks. "I'm asking you as Garnet," she puts her hands over her chest. "And as Ruby and Sapphire. Are you okay, Lapis?"

Instinctively - protectively - Lapis darts her eyes down the hall, where Jasper's got her hand on Amethyst's head, effortlessly holding her at arm's length as she curses and swings at her. Jasper sighs and makes a show of studying her nails, and Amethyst hollers. It's not a serious fight - if it was, Amethyst would be transfiguring herself and a lot more things would get smashed.

At their side, Emerald's laughing, openly and delightedly. The three of them clustered together look like a growth of cotton-headed dandelions, an image Lapis likes much better than thinking of them as three quartz soldiers. She wouldn't even know about dandelions if not for Earth.

Carefully, she unclenches her fists. "I'm good," she says.

"And Jasper?"

"Wildlife suits her," Lapis deadpans, and Garnet's eyebrow ticks up in appreciation for the double-entendre. "We're never bored."

But Garnet keeps waiting, because that's not what she's asking and Lapis knows it.

(She hadn't been there that day they tried Jasper out on Beach City citizens and Steven had to extract a promise from her not to harm a human life, and instead of snapping, Jasper took to it like a Diamond's oath. For years, Lapis dodged, made excuses, and outright declined any Crystal Gem get-together where Jasper would be present in her uncorrupted form, and for years, they let her get away with it.

And she continued to let Peridot and Steven be her tolerant go-betweens, until one day she opened her eyes and found Jasper sitting beside her on the bluff above the temple, utterly still, patient to wait while Lapis listened to the sun and the sea and the gulls arguing over their nests in the cliff, and she thought, _okay, we're doing this now._

She sat up.

Jasper followed her with her eyes and said, "Steven said I should try talking to you."

Her voice came out like it was being plumbed from an unfathomable depth, the way Lapis has seen deep-sea trawlers on YouTube scrape the ocean floor, looking for something lost or something valuable.

"- and that offering to say I'm sorry every day might lose its shine after a few hundred years, but that I should offer it anyway because he can't tell me what you want, only you can do that," and Lapis had said, "what," and Jasper had said, "you're avoiding me. I thought it was because you're still angry at me, or," her voice faltered, which was such a novelty to hear that Lapis found herself blinking a few more times for good measure. "Or - are you scared I'll hurt you?"

Lapis's face must have done something at that, because Jasper started talking faster.

"I haven't hurt anyone in a year!" And she flinched, ambushed by some memory. "Well, almost. And I apologized to Greg for that, which was good because everyone said I needed to practice that, too, the not-hurting and the apologizing."

"Yeah … I know what you've been doing," Lapis said, still in that strange, bewildered tone.

Jasper swallowed, and Lapis caught up to the conversation, all at once.

And here's the thing about having been trapped in a mirror for thousands of years: even when you're free, when your world is no longer glass and metal and your own miserable reflection, you still see mirrors everywhere, including in the people you're with. Here was her own self-hate and her own self-blame, reflected back at her.

She began to laugh - not intentionally, but like a reflex. It was the kind of laugh that comes out when something you thought was terrifying suddenly turns out to be not so terrifying after all.

Jasper frowned at her, so Lapis wiped her eyes and tried to explain it.

"I was avoiding you because I thought you were scared of _me._ I thought you were mad at _me!"_

And then she was laughing so hard her gut cramped, and she tipped forward, and Jasper leaned her shoulder forward automatically, and Lapis caught herself on it.)

(It wasn't fixed as quick as that, of course, but around the time Steven and Connie relocated inland towards DC and Peridot followed them, leaving Lapis alone in the barn, Jasper said, "Have you ever seen a bear?" and Lapis said, "only on TV," and Jasper said, "Want to meet my crew?" and Lapis said, "sure," and realized it wasn't even a lie. Of _course_ Jasper had a crew of bears. Of course Lapis wanted to see them.)

"There's a lake," comes out of her, quiet. "By the cabin. And at night, the stars are …"

She trails off. Malachite never got to see stars.

Maybe she would like to?

Garnet continues to wait, and finally, Lapis takes one more turn and finds there's nowhere left to go but right smack into the truth.

"You don't have to worry about me," she says. "I'm staying. I like knowing there's someone who's on _my_ side, always, and not just when I'm a good person, but when I'm falling apart, too. And it's not that I don't think you guys _wouldn't - "_ Peridot would. So would Steven, and probably Pearl, because she gets it, too. "But - I _know_ her, and she knows me, and we can't undo that. She would conquer the Earth for me, if I asked."

Because Jasper chose her the way she chose Steven, all those years ago.

Everything she does, laid at her feet. Everything, a continuous question: _am I good enough yet?_

And everything else, an answer: _of course you are._

"So each day, I don't ask for that." Her chin comes up. "And that's my choice."

The silence stretches for another beat, and Lapis wonders if maybe she should add something - that did kind of sound like a threat, didn't it? She doesn't mean it like that, it's more that - 

And then Garnet spreads her hands - a deep, dark gem embedded in her right palm, and in her left.

"A choice," she echoes, and when she smiles, it's joyful, and genuine. "It's good to have you on the Crystal Gems' side. Tell Jasper to buy both rugs for the cabin. Somaal will be teething when we visit and the red one's going to be a casualty."

"Okay," says Lapis.

 

*

 

Connie wakes herself up in the middle of the night by rolling over in her sleep, dislodging one of the sticky pads on her chest that's been monitoring her heartbeat. It beeps at her angrily, and she knows that if she doesn't fix it, in a few minutes it's going to sound an alarm at the nurse's station and someone's going to have to come do it for her.

Sighing, she wrestles her sore body around so that she can fish among the blankets for the wire, following it down to the sticky pad at the end, which she reattaches in the general vicinity of where it was before.

She waits for a beat, and then the monitor blinks green.

"Thanks," Connie tells it, but now she's awake and aware of how uncomfortable she is. She tosses her head back down on the pillow.

As a little girl, she never minded trailing her mother around hospitals on her rounds - it was always better than whatever lesson or summer camp or overenthusiastic babysitter they would have planned for her otherwise, because it meant she got unscheduled time with her mother. So she never disliked hospitals, but being a patient in one is a different story entirely.

Although … if she had to pick a reason … 

Eagerly, she slips her hand through the guardrail, feeling for the bassinet that had been considerately left at her bedside.

Her fingertips touch blanket, and a warm patch, and - 

Somaal's not in there.

Connie bolts upright, sending a sharp wail of pain through her rearranged insides. It steals her breath, forcing her to flinch through it as she looks frantically at the discarded blanket and then around her room.

Where's her stuff? She needs her sword, she needs to summon Steven and the gems - 

\- she needs -

\- where is _her baby!_

A movement ripples in the corner of her eye, and Connie goes still, trying to quiet her breathing. Slowly, she rolls her eyes in that direction.

No, definitely - 

_There!_

The air shimmers, then winks up where the overhead light's turned on it, and Connie realizes she's looking at a _screen_ \- a curtain of near-invisibility erected so that any casual nurse poking their head in wouldn't immediately see an unauthorized visitor, although any nurse worth their salt would _probably_ notice a missing infant.

Trying to remain calm, Connie glances at the heart monitor. Somaal's readings are still there, and the wires snake out towards - 

Just like that, she hits the right angle, and the invisibility screen vanishes from her peripheral.

It's Lapis, her knees drawn up in the chair that Peridot had been standing on earlier, skirt spilling over the edge of the upholstery. She's got the sticky pads that had been attached to Somaal's chest suspended in a bubble of water above her head - the screen's got to be part of her powers, too, Connie guesses - and Somaal herself tucked against her chest. With her fingertip, she keeps tracing Somaal's features - her eyebrows and nose, pudgy chin and mouth, like she's checking to make sure they've all stayed the same - and Somaal's too new to quite understand what's going on, so her head restlessly bobbles after each contact, mouth puckering up searchingly.

Connie releases her held breath. She wonders if Lapis understands Somaal's response, and then remembers that Lapis is a biologist now - she's probably seen things far weirder than an infant trying to suckle.

"Hello, baby," Lapis murmurs, too absorbed to notice Connie watching her. "Hello."

She rocks Somaal against her, calm and unhurried.

"Guess what," she says softly. "You've got to be the luckiest baby born today. We've got so much to teach you - all these lessons we had to learn the hard way, you can just _have._ You'll grow up with them! And you, every day you're going to be better than you were the day before. Every day, you get that chance. Isn't that amazing, Somaal?"

More movement, and this time, Connie startles badly.

She didn't even _notice_ Jasper standing there, and Jasper's not exactly an easy person to overlook.

Her bulk steps soundlessly around the chair, kneeling down at Lapis's side. Lapis drops her shoulder so that they both can bend their heads together over Connie's baby. Steven's baby. All theirs - their family.

"You weren't forged with any chains around you," she rumbles, and Somaal's head wobbles towards the sound of her voice. "There's nothing here that will trap you. We'll see to it. You've got all of us, gemdrop."

"Little Universe," Lapis adds.

"Maheswaran-Universe?"

"Did you ask?"

"No. Did you?"

"Eurgh. Well, we'll figure it out. She's got time to decide which she wants."

She tilts her head, and Jasper tilts hers. Their foreheads press together somewhere in the middle, a soft and seemingly unconscious gesture that makes Connie ache in a tender way.

Dragging her pillow forward, she props it under her chin, and somehow manages to drift off like that - turned towards the chair where her daughter rests, cradled by gems and as safe as she can be.

 

 

-  
fin

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr,](http://kaikamahine.tumblr.com/) if you're into that!


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